New Cadence Tensilica ConnX B20 DSP Boosts Performance by Up to 10X for Automotive Radar/Lidar and Up to 30X for 5G Communications

SAN JOSE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Cadence Design Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CDNS) today announced the Cadence®
Tensilica® ConnX B20 DSP IP, the highest-performing DSP in
the popular ConnX family. Based on a deeper processor pipeline
architecture, the ConnX B20 DSP provides a faster and more
power-efficient solution for the automotive and 5G communications
markets, including next-generation radar, lidar, vehicle-to-everything
(V2X), user equipment (UE)/infrastructure and IoT applications. With an
enhanced instruction set architecture (ISA) and clock-speed increase,
the ConnX B20 DSP processes parts of the communication processing chain
up to 30X faster and parts of the radar/lidar processing chain up to 10X
faster compared to the popular Tensilica ConnX BBE32EP DSP. Further
expanding the ConnX family, Cadence has introduced the ConnX B10 DSP,
which delivers half the vector width of the ConnX B20 DSP for
applications requiring less parallelism. For more information, visit www.cadence.com/go/connxb20.

Both the trend toward higher resolution imaging radar with more antennas
for autonomous driving applications and the emergence of 5G mobile
equipment and infrastructure demand significantly more processing power.
In addition, consumer/industrial radar, automotive V2X and 5G IoT
applications all require low-energy processing solutions. With the
addition of the ConnX B20 and B10 DSPs, the ConnX family excels at
meeting the demands for higher performance and low energy consumption.

Software compatible with the rest of the ConnX DSP family (the ConnX
BBE16/32/64EP), the ConnX B20 DSP has a 512-bit vector width up to 128
MACs, can load 1024 bits of data each cycle and achieves 1.4GHz or
greater frequency in 16nm process technology. This extends the ConnX
family to serve an even broader range of performance. Customers have a
variety of algorithm acceleration options to reduce cycle counts,
including higher precision with either 32-bit fixed-point operations
(including operations to optimize MAC, FFT and FIR) with native complex
support, or single-/half-precision vector floating-point (VFPU)
operations with half precision at 2X the single-precision throughput.
This flexibility allows customers to choose higher precision only when
needed. In addition, an extended VFPU option enables support for complex
floating-point operations and doubles the real floating-point operations
at the same vector width typically used in the front end of the radar
processing chain. The communications option accelerates forward-error
correction (FEC) in lower bit-rate communication applications seeking
software-defined radio solutions.

The ConnX B20 DSP’s native 32-bit support option and higher clock speed
deliver up to 10X faster performance for parts of the radar/lidar
processing chain compared to the popular ConnX BBE32EP DSP used today.
With the clock speed increase and FEC acceleration option, the ConnX B20
DSP is also up to 30X faster for parts of the communication processing
chain compared to the ConnX BBE32EP DSP. Both the ConnX B20 and B10 DSPs
provide customers with more performance and efficiency while preserving
their existing architecture and development environment. Customers can
quickly optimize for an application’s power, performance, and area (PPA)
requirements with easy scalability and extensive configurability within
the compatible ConnX DSP family. In addition, they can perform fast
software development with advanced compiler, debug and simulation tools
as well as an optimized math library and application examples with
source code.

“Autonomous driving requires high-resolution sensing to distinguish
separate objects at a distance. The addition of more antennas enables
increased radar resolution, which requires a corresponding increase in
DSP performance,” said Mike Demler, senior analyst at the Linley Group.
“Lidar systems have the necessary resolution but are too expensive for
wide deployment today. However, new solid-state implementations are
changing that and need some DSP programmability as the algorithms and
designs mature. The roll-out of 5G infrastructure and devices will drive
higher bandwidth, lower latency and lower energy consumption from edge
devices as signal power requirements decrease, and these new designs
demand more performance with scalability across multiple use cases.
Tensilica ConnX DSPs have been used in multiple automotive sensor and
communications applications, and the new ConnX B20 and B10 DSPs offer
new levels of performance and energy efficiency that are required for
next-generation devices.”

“ArrayComm developed physical layer software for 4G LTE, Cat-M and
NB-IoT base stations using the Cadence Tensilica ConnX BBE32EP DSP,”
said Xin Huang, president of ArrayComm. “We found the DSP to be powerful
and highly efficient, especially in vector processing. We look forward
to working with the Tensilica team to port ArrayComm’s 5G PHY onto the
latest ConnX DSPs.”

“Next-generation imaging radar and 5G communications are driving the
need for an order-of-magnitude increase in data throughput,” said Lazaar
Louis, senior director of product management and marketing for Tensilica
IP at Cadence. “To address our customers’ growing need for
high-performance radar and communications solutions, we continue to
invest in the successful ConnX DSP family. Our new ConnX B20 and B10
DSPs extend our range of scalable, compatible DSPs optimized for complex
number processing with higher clock speeds and more optimized
instructions, providing customers with an easy upgrade path for existing
designs in radar and communications applications for a wide variety of
markets.”

General availability for both the ConnX B20 and B10 DSPs is planned for
the second quarter of 2019. Customers interested in early access should
contact Cadence.

About Cadence

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by customers to deliver products to market faster. The company’s System
Design Enablement strategy helps customers develop differentiated
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datacenter, automotive, aerospace, IoT, industrial and other market
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Companies to Work For. Learn more at cadence.com.